That Excel file contains full page and wallet-sized copies of the schedule, in both color and black and white. On the wallet-sized copies, the line between weeks 8 and 9 has been enlarged — that is where you want to fold the paper in half to put in your wallet.

Go to that page on your phone, then hit your power and home button at the same time to take a photo (or hit the button on the middle of the Safari browser and click ‘save image.’) The schedule has been formatted to fit an iPhone screen, so you can always carry the schedule with you.

Of course, you don’t need an iPhone or Excel to view the NFL schedule:

Some quick schedule thoughts:

The refs will be real this time. In a rematch of the Fail Mary, the Packers will travel to Seattle for the Thursday Night NFL opener.

The double-header on Monday Night? It’s Giants/Lions and Chargers/Cardinals. All four of those teams can be pretty hit or miss, but New York/Detroit seems like the type of game that could end up mattering a lot by week 16. This will be the fifth time in six seasons that San Diego will play in the late game, but Arizona brings some star power to the matchup. Eli Manning, Calvin Johnson, Philip Rivers, Larry Fitzgerald, Patrick Peterson — that’s enough to keep you awake.

Despite having no affiliation to the rivalry, one of the first things I looked for was San Francisco/Seattle. The good: they play in San Francisco in the Thanksgiving night game. Wow! The bad: they play twice in three weeks. The ugly: the players after that second game.

Detroit/Chicago and Dallas/Philadelphia are the other two Thanksgiving games. Some of these games have been duds, but we should get some good quarterback play with Matthew Stafford, Jay Cutler, Tony Romo, and Nick Foles. Yeah, the odds seem pretty low that those will actually be the four quarterbacks starting in that game. Let’s just hope we get Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick at night.

By virtue of three Thanksgiving games and a Thursday night game every week other than week 17, that means there are 18 Thursday night games for 32 teams. As a result, four teams — the Packers, Seahawks, Cowboys, and Bears — play twice on Thursday, with every other team playing once. Dallas and Chicago both play on Thanksgiving and then exactly one week later.

In the event of a Game 7 in the World Series, it will go up against Baltimore/Pittsburgh Panthers/Saints on Thursday Night (apparently, game 7 no longer falls on Sunday night).

The 8-7 Cowboys will head to Washington in week 17.

The Saints, Patriots, and Jaguars are the only teams to open the season with two road games. Has Jacksonville been involved in some sort of -Gate that I’ve forgotten about?

San Diego has four games scheduled at 1:00 EST, including three on the East Coast. Of course, with the new flexing rules — games can be flexed in any week, beginning in week five — all bets are off this far out.

No Toronto game this year for Buffalo, but here’s your international note: Detroit/Atlanta kicks off at 9:30 Eastern.

The Jets play Manning and the Broncos and at Tom Brady and the Patriots in a five-day span, which seems like a good way of compartmentalizing my pain.

Red

Seems like an excessive number of three game home stands and three game road trips. Ideally I’d like to see none of either.

The usual NFC East overkill in primetime. Praying for the flex.

Seattle hosts St. Louis in week 17 for the fifth time in six years. Odd…

Broncos have three of first four at home, with the road game vs. an NFC team…for three straight years now.

Very strange distribution of byes, with six teams having week 4 byes, then only two each in weeks 5-8. I’ve always wished the NFL would play eight weeks, have a bye for all 32 teams during World Series week, then play the final eight games straight through. More fair, less confusion for mid-season records and fantasy players, plus one Sunday during the fall when husbands won’t mind doing stuff with their wives.

Nifty chart, Chase. Much more handy than the slow loading tables at NFL.com or ESPN.

Ian

No way would fans agree to a whole week without NFL football during football season, although having the byes in a tight 3 or 4-week window would be a good compromise.

Richie

If I remember correctly, the first year that byes existed (1990?), they were divided up by division (back when most divisions had 5 teams). The top 4 teams in each division, from the previous season, had a bye the same week. All the 5th-place teams had a bye together. That made so much sense.

It seems much more fair for every team in the same division to have a bye the same week. And why can’t we just knock them out in 4 weeks.

Then in 2014, just rotate it so that the East teams have their byes in Week 10 and everybody else moves up a week.

Now the divisions have their byes together, and all teams have their byes close to the middle of the year. This seems so simple, fair and obvious, that I feel like I’m on crazy planet.

Chase Stuart

I always assumed it was because of TV rights.

With 8 teams off in a week, that leaves just 12 games. With TNF, SNF, and MNF, that leaves only 9 games for Sunday at 1 and Sunday at 4. That leaves only 4.5 games for this period for each of FOX and CBS, and my guess is they wouldn’t like that.

Richie

I think they’ve had some 8-team byes in the past, haven’t they?

And why would only 4.5 games be a problem? CBS/FOX only show 3 games each week.

mrh

Teams should have their byes the Sunday before their Thursday games, at least for the Week 4 thru T-giving Thu games. Better for the players, fairer for the teams (no one travels on a short week). Probably can’t extend this to beginning and end of the season but in the middle I think this would be a better system.

Richie

Agreed! So simple and obvious.

JeremyDe

Never understood why a team would get a bye as early as Week 4….and this year there are 6. But only 2 teams per week for the next 4 weeks? huh?

I wonder if there were any banned substances being used while creating this schedule.

Quinton

Gabbertgate

Ty

NFC West and AFC West schedules look brutal.

Nate

We knew that that was going to happen — the AFC West and NFC West were the strongest divisions in football last year (almost sending six teams to the playoffs between them) and those teams play each other a lot every year.